Disqus - Latest Comments for kestrel2008

Re: Senate "Compromise" 2/7: Page 1

kestrel2008 — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:21:32 -0000

From Conference final bill

The conferees provide $200,000,000 for the Office of the Under Secretary for
Management instead of $198,000,000 as proposed by the Senate and no funding proposed
by the House. These funds are for planning, design, and construction costs necessary to
consolidate the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headquarters. DHS estimates
that this project will create direct employment opportunities for 32,800 people in the
region, largely within the construction and renovation industry. The conferees include
bill language as proposed by the Senate to require an expenditure plan.

So .. we get a job for every $6100 spent... hardly think so! The estimates for the mulitplier effect varies from 1 to 3. But this is calling for a multiplier of 10! Even the most optimistic don't say this.

Re: Senate "Compromise" 2/7: Page 1

kestrel2008 — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:16:24 -0000

If everyone has 1 million dollars, then your $200K house will suddenly be worth $1.2M because the people will spend it like it is burning a hole in their pocket. All giving the people money like that does is make the dollars that much more worthless. If there is suddenly $300 Trillion dollars in the system chasing the exact same goods, what do you think will happen to the prices, it will be bidding wars until everything evens out just like it is now only with more zeros.

Re: House Democrats 1/15/08: Page 23

kestrel2008 — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:13:30 -0000

HAHAHA!!!!

All of your complained about the $14M for the board. Apparently the congress agreed with you so instead of $14M, the final version has $84 MIllion... yes, that is right $84M for the expenses associated with just 12 people for 2 years or $3.5Million per person per year.

Re: House Democrats 1/23/09 Bill Text: Page 1

kestrel2008 — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:28:44 -0000

Of course not... The internet was invented by some college researchers who wanted to share data so created ARPnet. Gore just sponsored a bill that provided funding.

Re: ReadTheStimulus.org: CBO Charts

kestrel2008 — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:22:30 -0000

Only if they are really bored!!! Way too many emails to be monitored actually, the estimate is 97 Billion Emails a day. Less phones calls but way too many. Actually, computers, not people, are listening and avoid the magic words which they are searching for and it will never be captured.

Far easier to deal with 330 Million DNA samples than emails and phone calls. Although actually, contrary to what you see on TV, I'm not sure they could actually process that much DNA in a generation. But hey, there is money in this plan to solve that problem too.... See CDC funding.

Re: ReadTheStimulus.org: CBO Charts

kestrel2008 — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:10:48 -0000

Read the bill and you won't stop laughing!!!!

We don't build infrastructure with this bill... we do studies about infrastructure.

The main people hired by this bill is college professors and grad students..

Just look how many "grants" are in the bill!

Re: ReadTheStimulus.org: CBO Charts

kestrel2008 — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:38:43 -0000

Ah... you didn't read the posts did you!!!!!

Yes, been a bad 18 monjths, but has it been a bad 25 years?

My house which I bought for $150K went up to $225K and then crashed to $175K.... Bad 18 months, sure, I'm still ahead though.

If you invested money in the market 25 years ago and even if you sold at the bottom, you still made money.

Has it been a disasterous 25 years? No.. it has been growth and profit all around. Too much profit lead to these 18 months. Hasn't the housing issues been caused by people expecting the ever rising prices of houses to continue forever? Didn't the sales persons point to years and years of price growth to convince people to do 125% financing?

No, 3 decades have been wonderful... 18-24 months of pain come with every 20 year run.. (see 1989, 1977, 1954, 1937, 1929, etc) These are just the cycle of life and no bill, no amount of spending is going to stop the roller coaster.

By the way, I knew it was coming and having been hurt a bit and in fact have made money on the downturn.

Re: ReadTheStimulus.org: CBO Charts

kestrel2008 — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:29:56 -0000

Accorfding to a recent report which gave our infrastrructure a grade of an F, there is no safe water to drink in America and 95% of our roads are dangerously impassable.

Does that agree with your experience? If 90% of our bridges are failing down, why don't more of them fall?

Re: ReadTheStimulus.org: CBO Charts

kestrel2008 — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:44:17 -0000

The only error in your logic is that there has been massive growth in wages and earnings. We got into these mess because so many people were making so much more money that they didn't handle it wisely. If 98% of the people were stagnant in their wages, they wouldn't have been out buying McMansions which something like 40% of the population did. Three decades ago the suburbs north of Dallas consisted of 1200-1500 sq ft homes with a 19" Tv, no computer, and an old chevy.. now it is 2800-4000 sq ft homes, multiple 40" TVs, multiple laptops, and two lexus in the garage. Don't think for a moment that it wasn't successful.

Even the exit polls from the election showed increases in the number of people at all levels of income.. more people reported themselves greater than $100K than ever before and they spent it. Fewer people reported themselves under the poverty level than ever before and that is with the strong upsurge in minority votes (as the media would have you believe)

You are in the midst of the greatest wealth generation in history. You have more goods, money and opportunity than ever before in history. Fact is there are more people employeed now than ever in history, it is just that we haven't been able to create jobs as fast as aliens come into the country,.

I would love to have what we have had in the last 3 decades... let's see my salary went from $20K to $130K and I can spend every dime on wonder things.

Re: ReadTheStimulus.org: CBO Charts

kestrel2008 — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:50:15 -0000

Actually it hasn't totally been written yet. People keep talking about "Obama's Stimulus Plan" as if it is different from the House or Senate Version, which I suspect it is. You won't know what they pass until after they pass it and it is law.

They will let you know when it is time to hand over your medical records to the govt and submit your DNA to them. (and I'm not kidding.)

Re: ReadTheStimulus.org: CBO Charts

kestrel2008 — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:47:23 -0000

Exactly.. How many of us have seen road projects that are finished one or two years after they started talking about them?

Most bridges seem to take 2-3 years and tollroads 4-6 years..

Infrastructure (which isn't what they bill is about, that is a lie) can't be spent quickly. You have to design, plan, order, bid, contract, and then do the work.

Re: House Democrats 1/23/09 Bill Text: Page 1

kestrel2008 — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:42:24 -0000

I can only agree. No reasonable smart person, who are representatives claim to be, can actually thing this is right or will work. I'm not sure about ending the dollar but I think the real plan is to inflate our way out of this. You know if you cut the value of the dollar by 1/10 so that a loaf of bread is $20 and Milk $30 / gal, two things happen.. your $200,000 mortagage at $1000/mo seems like a steal (ask anyone who owned a house in late 70's) and secondly your retirement is worthless, so you have to be more dependant on government.

That is my thought anyway

Re: House Democrats 1/23/09 Bill Text: Page 1

kestrel2008 — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:58:02 -0000

400 Million on research and modeling to prove it is real. Plus billions on alternative energy (which doesn't contain enough potential energy) and Carbon Capture Research (read college research programs)

billions spent to make manufacturing in this company to come to a halt. Making us all poor.

Re: House Democrats 1/23/09 Bill Text: Page 125

kestrel2008 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:23:27 -0000

Notice they never really define what industries those are. They are very mislead as to the viability of these technologies. They seem to think solar panels (while restricting the chemicals used to make semiconductors) and windmills are the future, without thinking about the vast size required to offset the power requirement and the powerlines needed.

I'm sure glad I'm not using solar during today's ice storm.

Re: House Democrats 1/23/09 Bill Text: Page 144

kestrel2008 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:20:34 -0000

Spend money to manufacture the drugs. Then spend money to dispose of the drugs when the expire and we don't use them or when the bugs are drug resistant. All those tamaflu pills the government bought a few years ago (where ever they went), are worthless against this years drug resistant flu.

Re: House Democrats 1/23/09 Bill Text: Page 150

kestrel2008 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:19:14 -0000

reduce illness, reduce costs to the state health care programs. Ironic, they are doing all these things to reduce the state costs on health insurance, while telling us that we can afford to insure everyone.

Re: House Democrats 1/15/08: Page 45

kestrel2008 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:17:41 -0000

Hire more people to walk around and try to find more people in democratic districts so that there can be more democratic representatives. And besides going to take a lot of people to find all the dead people who are still voting and illegal aliens

Re: House Democrats 1/15/08: Page 221

kestrel2008 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 11:47:50 -0000

Fixed Guideway Infrastructure????

Do they mean, railroad tracks? If so, why don't they just say so.

Re: House Democrats 1/15/09 Committee Report: Page 7

kestrel2008 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:15:57 -0000

Wars can stimulate the economy but not the ones we have now.

The key to stimulating the economy with a war is blow up stuff! When in a major war, every bomb dropped needs to be replaced, every tank the enemy destroys needs to be replaced, every ship sunk needs to be replaced.

In WW2, we built hundreds of Liberty ships, more than 50 aircraft carriers, a dozen or so battleships, tens of thousands of airplanes, landing craft, tanks, trucks. Battleships (like the Missouri) which we used until the Gulf War.

But look at today's wars. How much stuff do we really ship to the battlefield. A lot at first but not much now. We aren't building replacements and that is why the war isn't helping. Having our soldiers stand around bases in Iraq doesn't help.. we need them out blowing stuff up, so we can ship them new things.

Even the Gulf war was more of a stimulus because of all those cruise missiles that we had to replace. This time we haven't replace them.

Re: House Democrats 1/23/09 Bill Text: Page 2

kestrel2008 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:09:51 -0000

Once you read the bill.. it is clear that the "most impacted" has already been predefined as low income.

When in fact it doesn't take too much thought to realize that those on gov't assistance see their income change little, especially compared to all the laid off workers from Home Depot, Catapiller, Sprint, Pfizer, etc.

Re: House Democrats 1/15/08: Page 60

kestrel2008 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:04:02 -0000

I thought this strange...

Those that believe Global warming already believe it has been proved. Same for those who disagree. Seems like we are spending a lot of money proving something we already believe has been proven.

Total: About $1 Billion to prove, model and track Global Warming.
And that isn't counting the National Science Foundation money which I'm sure will go largely to climate research

Re: House Democrats 1/15/08: Page 1

kestrel2008 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:03:18 -0000

Hey... the important thing is that the map be "interactive"

maybe we could report dead spots and they would run out and put up towers just for us.

Re: House Democrats 1/23/09 Bill Text: Page 1

kestrel2008 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:59:09 -0000

Because then it would reveal the dirty little secret... solar and wind aren't strong enough to actually provide the power.

As I sit here and look out at the cloudy sky as the ice pellets hit the windows, I'm thankful I'm not relying on solar and wind for power or I would be pretty darn cold. At this instant, more of the country, especially the midwest is under a winter storm. Solar energy would be a disaster at the moment because it isn't all sunshine.

No, solar only works if you have major solar farms (up to 5 square miles) situated in all corners of the country with transmission lines spread to all other corners of the country. Today, CA has to provide the power for all of the plains. On other days, the plains have to provide the power for CA. I saw the estimate that you will need about 1 football field of solar panels for every electric car you want to power. We have about 200 Million cars in this country so do the math.

Re: House Democrats 1/23/09 Bill Text: Page 611

kestrel2008 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:56:14 -0000

But aren't we just trading 20 minutes of a doctor's time doing the abortion, instead of 18 years of child care and education? Isn't reducing births, reducing jobs?

Just think of all the childcare workers that will lose their jobs. Or NEA teachers, or tenured College professors....

Oh, wait, maybe I'm not against that after all :)

No, I am against it, even if it means more NEA.

Re: House Democrats 1/23/09 Bill Text: Page 1

kestrel2008 — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:50:42 -0000

how true.. how true!!!!

I still wonder where the outrage is on that National Health Records database where they even say that the intent is to "make the distribution of services equatiable" i.e. rationing of your health care.

By the way... anybody think it funny that we are going to use Gov't computer database
to keep our records in an effort to "reduce" errors. Are the Gov't and large databases really known for reducing errors?

and yes.. I was being sarcastic!